The score shows the White Sox lost by three, and yet even when the Giants led by one or two, it didn't feel that close.
White Sox pitchers had to sweat three times as many baserunners as their counterparts despite throwing one fewer inning, and while they managed to escape the big inning multiple times, four single tallies was plenty to secure the win, and send the White Sox to their 14th consecutive series defeat.
Davis Martin pitched better than his line, but his infield defense let him down for two of the three runs on his tab.
In the second, Matt Chapman singled with one out, then moved to third on a Mike Yastrzemski grounder that could've been two, but definitely should've been one. Lenyn Sosa couldn't handle the high second hop on a grounder, but more because he was looking at spinning to second for an attempt to get the lead runner. Instead, Chapman took third, and scored when Thairo Estrada beat out an attempt at turning a 5-4-3 double play.
An inning later, Miguel Vargas fumbled the exchange on a routine Curt Casali bouncer to start. Tyler Fitzgerald then shot a single through the right side, after which Martin lost control of his arsenal and walked consecutive hitters to give the Giants the lead.
It should've been worse, because Martin was reduced to throwing get-me-over sliders to Heliot Ramos, who fouled off a couple before taking one off the plate for the second of those walks, but Michael Conforto chased a first-pitch cutter and popped out to Korey Lee, and Chapman then grounded into a double play to limit the damage.
Martin's third run came in on Fraser Ellard's watch. He departed with one out and one on, but Ellard walked the run into scoring position, and Ramos lined an RBI single to center. Again, that inning could've been worse, because Ellard intentionally walked Chapman to load the bases for Yastrzemski, and got an inning-ending groundout to leave them loaded.
Yasztremski finally came through with the big two-out hit the Giants had lacked off Touki Toussaint in the seventh. Toussaint had walked the first two batters before getting Chapman to ground into his second double play of the night, but Yaz pulled a grounder past Gavin Sheets and under the padding along the side wall for an automatic RBI double.
All of the runs were unnecessary, because the Sox had nothing for the Giants outside of the third, when they notched two of their three hits and needed an aggressive coin-flip send by Justin Jirschele and a challenge to score the run. Dominic Fletcher dropped a single to left, then scored all the way from first on Sosa's double to the left-center gap on a high-quality baseball play.. He was originally called out before the review showed that his foot touched the plate before Casali's tag touched his hip.
The Sox only had three other baserunners the rest of the evening: a Vargas HBP, a Gavin Sheets single and Fletcher reaching on catcher interference. None of them were able to get so far as second base, as the Giants combined to 119 pitches over nine innings to the White Sox's 154 over eight.
Bullet points:
*Ray came into the game with an ERA of 6.00, but it's down to 4.88 after 6⅔ scoreless innings.
*The White Sox struck out 12 times to zero walks, and only had one at-bat with runners in scoring position.
